Avenida La Pata, lower right, dead-ends at Calle Saluda in San Clemente. A proposed extension to La Pata Avenue south of San Juan Capistrano's Ortega Highway would go between power poles and homes, concealed by cut-and-fill and an earthen berm.

This is how the dead end of Avenida La Pata looks at Calle Saluda in San Clemente. Talega homes are at right. Orange County proposes to extend Avenida La Pata 4.5 miles north to connect with La Pata Avenue south of Ortega Highway. Two of those miles are rugged, undeveloped terrain.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, addresses the San Clemente City Council In February, when the council asked for federal help in extending Avenida La Pata from San Clemente to San Juan Capistrano.

Participants at a 2009 workshop compare possible alignments for extending Avenida La Pata past San Clemente's Talega and Forster Ranch communities. The white alignment is the one ultimately selected.

The white route is the one selected for extending Avenida La Pata past San Clemente's Talega and Forster Ranch communities to connect with La Pata Avenue south of Ortega Highway in San Juan Capistrano.

A critical gap in the county’s road network is a step closer to being filled, Orange County supervisors said Tuesday as they approved a route to extend Avenida La Pata between San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

On a unanimous vote in Santa Ana, the Board of Supervisors picked an alignment and approved environmental documents.

“Is there any way that we as a board can figure out how to find funding faster, sooner, quicker?” Supervisor John Moorlach asked.

Building the road figures to cost $77 million, which jumps to $90 million when design, right-of-way acquisition, permits and other costs factor in. Of that, only $33 million has been identified – $8 million from a fee collected by developers of San Clemente’s Talega community and $25 million pledged by Rancho Mission Viejo through fees attached to future homes. The timing of those 14,000 homes is uncertain.

Moorlach said he sees the La Pata extension as crucial to public safety. The 4.5-mile link would offer an alternative to I-5 to evacuate San Clemente in the event of a radioactive release from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

“La Pata is one of the main stems for relieving traffic congestion in the south county,” Supervisor Patricia Bates said. “Both the extension of the 241 and La Pata connection are vital to the mobility in south county for all the things that we do – going to work, recreation, getting our kids to school and certainly the evacuation issues that have come to the forefront with the result of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.”

Bates called for completion of La Pata as quickly as possible and resolution of alignment issues to extend the 241 Toll Road to I-5. “If we do not get those connections,” she said, “we’re looking at something worse than what we see on the 91 right now.”

Moorlach asked for progress updates on La Pata every six months.

Val Ignat, a Talega resident, told the board that he wished an alternative alignment farther from Talega homes had been given more analysis by project planners, especially an alignment that would go on the west side of a hill, closer to the Forster Ranch community. “I don’t think the neighbors in Talega have been given a fair shake,” he said.

Harry Persaud, project manager, told the board that a thorough study of options was done in 2005, including routes on the east (Talega) side and west (Forster Ranch) side of a hill on which regional power lines run up the middle. Persaud said the county would have to condemn Forster Ranch homeowners’ land to put the road on their side, while the Talega developer already had granted right of way to put the road on the Talega side.

Persaud said county engineers worked with Talega neighbors for two years on design refinements to minimize effects on Talega. The original route – 100 feet from the nearest home – now is 359 feet away and is proposed to be recessed 50 feet into the hill so it can’t be seen.

Akram Hindiyeh, San Clemente’s traffic engineer, told county supervisors that the city supports the project, which also would connect the Forster Ranch community with La Pata via a quarter-mile extension of Camino del Rio. Both links are essential to the city, he said.

Fred Swegles grew up in small-town San Clemente before the freeway. He has covered the town since 1970. Today he covers San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. He was in the second graduating class at San Clemente High School, after having spent the first two years of high school in double sessions at historic Capistrano Union High School in San Juan. When the new high school opened, he became first sports editor of the school paper, The Triton. He studied journalism and Spanish at USC on scholarship, graduating with honors. Was sports editor of the Daily Trojan. Surfed on the USC surf team. (High school surfing didn't exist back then.) With the Sun Post, he began covering competitive surfing from the mid-1970s, with the birth of the the modern world tour and the origins of high school surf teams. He got into surf photography and into world travel. Has surfed on six continents (not Antarctica). Has visited 11 San Clementes. Has written photo-illustrated profiles on most of them, with more in the works.

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